Thinking about L.A.

© 2010 bridget batch

My baby wants to move to L.A.

This isn't exactly news, he's wanted this for a long time. He finds L.A. beautiful (he is right), and inspiring. But now that we've been here for two months, the desire has matured. I just happen to have a life in New York, with many, many friends, that I treasure. Of course he does too, but it is different for him. I guess that he likes driving more than I do.

I've been enjoying the experience in L.A., perhaps more than I thought I would. We have friends here and I had a great shoot in Las Vegas (although I would have had that were I in NYC as well). On the art front, I've been shooting nearly every day, at least a little bit. The range of plants foreign to me, and the incredibly lush rapaciousness of them has delighted me. The driving has bothered me a little less than I thought it would, and the immediate availability of hiking really is wonderful. But I miss my New York people. My feelings on this matter are incredibly complex.

I do not look forward to returning to an apartment in New York that, due to various construction issues, has never become home. The very real circumstances of the apartment, the endless construction fixes, the motley parade of engineers, technicians and insurance adjusters in and out of it is depressing. When we returned to New York after our summer travels, we found the front yard completely unkept -- a situation that Kevin and a neighbor took upon themselves to remedy. I guess our management company doesn't do lawn care.

At this point, I would say I have lived without a true sense of home for years. A friend of mine once suggested I do a project about this. This is partly because I am not very domestic. It's also because Kevin and I are so nomadic, we have traveled so much (wow, have we been fortunate, insert gratitude here). Sometimes I feel like I am floating, a tumbleweed, without roots and, perhaps, purpose. But I also feel a sense of freedom. I am not sure that I really want to be tied to a home. It's no secret that purchasing an apartment was not my first choice. However, I always knew that we could easily rent it and fortunately I was correct.

But not being tied to a place has its disadvantages. I observe a closeness, the bonding of shared experiences, amidst groups of friends that awakens deep pain within me, certainly a longing for that and a jealousy that I am outside of that. But it's my own fault, there is no possibility of me being part of it without my physical presence!

Interesting how, when you think of a place, it's the experiences with the people there that comes first to mind. The energy of New York is amazing, but that all comes from the people.

Calling All Caves

I need to find the right cave. I don't think I want to join a spelunking society, and I don't think they'd have me either. Bats inspire a terror of rabies. I am afraid of heights and had a nervous breakdown the one time I went rock-climbing when I was 19. Fortunately, I was with some fantastically patient and compassionate people. But rappeling into immense darkness appeals to me even less than doing it blinding daylight.

Then why on earth have I been searching the world for the proper cave?

I have a photograph in my head and I need to make it in a cave. Other requirements complicate it, but the first is finding the cave. And I am not particularly looking to have it be a so-called "show" cave, all decked out in colored lights.

New York is not a cave wonderland although there are a few. I started to look Upstate a year ago, but my friends who have a house in the Catskills reminded me that in the fall, other creatures actively look for caves as well. Kevin and I drove all over the southeast Catskills asking about one hole in the ground, finally finding it. It was intensely dark inside although I did kind of like it.

In the Philippines a year ago, I actually managed to obtain my delicate and expensive props, for cheap because it's the Philippines! Four of us, Kevin, our friend, her friend who was a professional guide and myself set out on scooters in Bohol to see a cave that this friend promised was stunning. It seemed perfect and I was very excited. Then Kevin and I had a little motorbike accident and I spent three hours at the private hospital desperately hoping the needle was clean as the doctor gave me a tetanus shot and stitches.

Several months later, the friend, Scott, died in a caving accident. He was 31 and a sweet, lovely guy. He had lived in the Philippines for some time and was very good to us. His death is a tragedy.

At the Grand Canyon residency last March, I thought that for sure I could shoot something in a cave there. The only problem was obtaining my delicate, and expensive, props which were not available in the national park. Upon arrival, I also learned that the park forbids entry to any and all caves in the Canyon. The residency coordinator (Rene god bless you, your're amazing) told me that her electrician husband had installed many video cameras at cave entrances in order to keep people out.

You think that's a waste of taxpayer money? I bet it's cheaper than a search and rescue mission, or prosecuting grave robbers. Yep, to this day, disgusting excuses for humans steal Native American artifacts and even more disgusting people pay a lot of money for those artifacts.

So, no caves in the Canyon. I didn't think I could handle the fine.

I am in Southern California now. Holla if you think you can help me with an attractive, accessible (a hike is fine), cave with a fair amount of entrance space.


entrance to an underground river near Ellenville, NY
© 2009 bridget batch

Virus Fonts

virusfonts.com

The established British design foundry is selling posters of a design for only $15, proceeds of which will go to relief efforts in Pakistan. Of course, shipping to the US isn't going to be so cheap. But what a fabulous idea!

Welcome to Los Angeles - It's not smog, it's a 'marine layer'

© 2010 bridget batch

You can't take an American road trip much further from New York than Los Angeles. We arrived here last week and I conveniently became ill with some sort of flu/cold. Kevin insists that, "it's not smog, it's a marine layer."


© 2010 bridget batch


Los Angeles is known for smog, and helicopters. I am obsessing over the helicopters and need to make a video about them. It's paranoid, of course, to think they are surveilling me. But they hover over our little guesthouse and I can't put the smell of napalm in the morning out of my mind. (which reminds me, I am interested in this show now, but since i"ve barely been in New York, I was unaware of it: Dinh Q. Le at MoMA. I never think this in New York. But days go by in NYC without hearing the ghetto birds.


© 2010 bridget batch


One of the best things about LA is the architecture. One more cliche -- driving in LA is torture. You could probably get some info out of the guys at Guantanamo by forcing them to drive between Santa Monica and Hollywood over and over, and over, and over again. But there are really so many interesting things to look at. Would that violate the Geneva Accords?

© 2010 bridget batch


Yes, they do sometimes ride bikes here.

© 2010 bridget batch

For now, I feel welcomed, excited and intrigued.

© 2010 bridget batch

Except, for maybe by this New Yorker.

© 2010 bridget batch

When does a place become sacred?

© 2010 bridget batch

We found a magical place. Actually, it was more Kevin who found it. I sat in the passenger seat desperately working on my laptop, working on what I call the "real" work -- as if making art were actually always fun. We commonly look this way, me hunched over, squinting at an lcd screen I can barely see; him driving along, never finding a place that is actually good enough. Today I made up a version of Goldilocks to describe him -- "this forest is too dark," "this forest is just right." Two days ago, he drove his Subaru, "Adele" up and down several tortured forest service roads in the wilds of Idaho. He had made up his own song, "it's too thick for any use" to complain about the forest.

I found these thick, musty woods seductive, an enchanted fairy world. Our experience began in the Yaak -- in the far northwest of Montana where the elevation is low and the constant rain inspires too many things to grow. We were socked in for the entire 5 days that we stayed there for the job. But I was trying to be a good assistant, and to stay up and finish my other tasks, and I didn't take advantage of the enchanted misty woods as I should have. The terrain changes daily, you cannot ever let the opportunities slip away,

Kevin was looking for a vantage point, some vista that revealed something other than endless reams of light-sucking conifer velvet. We didn't see this fire tower at all until we were right under it. We had just enough water and food. But it was amazing and we spent two days there in complete solitude.

Road Trip

© 2010 bridget batch

Stop it with the mosque controversy already

I am going to join the blogosphere on this one.

Could everyone just stop being so hypocritical about the Constitution and SHUT UP about this mosque already? Build the damn thing and move on. Freedom of religion on private property is a cherished American right and that religion is any damn religion that decides to exist. Stupid as they all may be. Yes, I said that.

A lot of people agree with me, they simply do not happen to scream as loudly or make for as good of news copy as the so-called "right" wing (i think i am going to start calling them the "wrong" wing. Why should they get away with that bit of PR brilliance anyway?) And, when have the likes of Jerry Falwell and grandstanding ultra-conservative ministers been proven "right" about anything? ANYthing?

Enough of a tirade for today. I am on the road again, with the boy. We drove away from anxiety into freedom. September 11 came and went and we were in Minneapolis where the grief is, of course, a little more muted. It was a gorgeous day too. The event deserves real commemoration, of course. But nearly ten years on, many are going to forget. Just as all war events become forgotten paragraphs in history textbooks. How many of us contemplate the horrible tragedies of the War of 1812? How many of us even know that the Star-Spangled banner was written then? I am sure the widows of those young American and British soldiers were pretty upset about it at the time.

They have a right to the mosque and this country purportedly stands for religious freedom. For you non-New Yorkers, envision the number of cabbies and street vendors trying to say their prayers on the street downtown at noon. Not a one of these men has done any American any wrong -- if you can forgive serving over-greasy schwarma, They could use a house of worship (i suppose). The mosque is not on, at, facing, or even within a block of the World Trade Center site. Save your ire for a real crime.

Who trumped up this controversy in the first place?

Spirit in an apartment

I've been shooting interiors for an architect named Carolyn DiCarlo. She designs and constructs interior spaces using the principles of sacred geometry. Her attention to detail is riveting. In many of the apartments, her creative immersion extends beyond reconfiguring the space, or making a nice kitchen, she has even designed the furniture, the linens and the rugs. I have been enjoying the task.

We decided to do a spirit photograph in one space.



© 2010 bridget batch

I would love to end up making photographs that are as artistically beautiful as those by Julius Shulman — the great architectural photographer of the California mid-20th century International Style.

Longshot Magazine

http://one.longshotmag.com/

Longshot takes 48 hours and lots of sweat to create. Based out of San Francisco, they decide on a theme, and we content producers have 24 hours to come up with something for publication. Pressure!

Cut to their editorial team, who must be crazy in the best way possible. In a mere additional 24 hours, they go through the submissions, make their selections and then, design a magazine. The magazine is available in print form. You can purchase here.

This is issue one. One of the photographs from my Poignancy series is on the cover. I'm including the picture here, but please check out Longshot!




© bridget batch

About to leap off into the great unknown.



© 2010 bridget batch

Spirit in the Canyon

This may be my favorite so far....



© 2010 bridget batch

Summertime is Brooklyn Rooftops

Kevin and I have just returned to New York.

I know, big news, call all of the papers. We were away for two months, with a couple slight interruptions. I flew back to New York to shoot a wedding. Because we had people staying at our place, I stayed with my friends. It felt like a vacation in my hometown. Then, I returned to the West. I had left from Colorado and ended up in El Paso. For the first time in years, I actually flew without checking my bags. I forgot to pack the toiletries in the ziploc bag. Being such an experienced traveler, I felt embarrassed by the error.

I wrote an account of the entire adventure, but I am still editing it. The posting will come. For now, I post another Spirit picture, created last night with the help of my friend Jenn -- looking cuter in my dress than i do, of course. Oh well, it's not a fashion shot.



© 2010 bridget batch

© 2010 bridget batch

© 2010 bridget batch

© 2010 bridget batch

New Spirit Photograph

First one in Brooklyn
© 2010 bridget batch

Back in Brooklyn

Uh, Bushwick Fire
© 2010 bridget batch

Oregon

Lovely, ubiquitous Dutch Brothers Coffee stands, in the Willamette Valley
© 2010 bridget batch

Kevin Cooley in F-Stop Magazine

Lovely Interview...
F-Stop Magazine

Memorial Day Picture

Memorial Day swim in the East River: terrifying
© 2010 bridget batch

Farewell Camera

I will post no photographs for Aspen, Colorado. Not for this trip anyway.

Kevin’s from Colorado and he had never been to Aspen before. He was excited to go. on assignment for Travel & Leisure (look for it in August, I believe). Me, I am always excited to just go.

In Aspen, the time was off-season and the stores were closed, streets were empty, the trees still barren and the sky was muddy. My stomach was a mess. I felt horrible. I must have swallowed too many dinoflagellates while swimming around the Bio Bay for 2+ hours to make those photographs.

We woke up early and Kevin began shooting. I would scramble around on the ground where all of the gear was. Every time I stood up, I thought I would faint. He put down his Canon 5d about two feet to my right and I kept feeding him 4x5 film holders. He was shooting a fly fisherman while we were on a bridge for a jogging trail just east of town. Not that many joggers went by, about half of them were pushing strollers.

A few minutes passed and we turned around, reaching for the digital camera. But it was not there.

We searched the area, the river, the river bank, called the police, and posted a sign. I called the National Forest ranger station and endured a tongue-lashing about permits. Despite taking all possible measures, the camera is gone. Perhaps overwhelmed by the fantasy land of designer ski-wear, Prada and silver Cadillac Escalades, some opportunistic jogger just had to steal the nice digital camera.

The police report part of our life is not so glamorous.

Memorial Day

A gentle condemnation of war, tated eloquently and sorrowfully in the New York Times by Nancy Sherman today.

Travel as profession or pleasure has its problems (carbon usage, hello?) but I fervently believe that people meeting each other across cultures will lead to more peace and progress than any war ever will. I have been to View Nam now, and it's impossible to imagine fighting a war with the country. Despite the statues of Ho Chi Minh everywhere, the Vietnamese seemed happy enough to simply do business. Let's hope that I could travel to Afghanistan, maybe in less than ten years, and come back saying the same thing.

In honor of all of those who've been hurt by the stupidity of war.

Swimming with the stars

The dinoflagellates are tiny, brilliant blue stars pouring through your fingers. They are to be photographed as abstraction, as mystery, a piece of the infinite that escaped from the center of the earth.

A fish in the Bio Bay looks up to see the dinoflagellates twinkling, and makes wishes. Just like we look up to our own version of the known universe, and make wishes.


© 2010 kevin cooley & bridget batch


© 2010 kevin cooley & bridget batch


© 2010 kevin cooley & bridget batch

(and happy anniversary to us)

Vieques Misadventures II

It’s a ten-minute drive from Vieques to Isabel Segundo and the airport on the other side of the island. We have to be at the airport at 9:20, so we tried to start the car at 8:50. The engine refused to turn. I called Martineau’s Car Rental and they said we got the key wet, which is a $350 charge.

“But we didn’t get the key wet! The car was overheating yesterday! And now we are going to miss our flight, I should charge you for the inconvenience! If we got the key wet how could we have the car here at the hotel. You have to send someone here to take us to the airport.” Imagine tortured Spanish here.

I walked across the street and kicked the Malécon. I so rarely get that angry my friends would be surprised to read that. Because the passenger ferry to the main island was out of commission, the car ferries were all running an hour late, and this was why we were even flying to San Juan. Missing the baby flight to San Juan meant missing our flight to Atlanta, and then missing our the last flight out to New York. And that meant missing a meeting for me the next day and possibly our flight to Aspen for a job the next evening. The price of the car rental had just gone from $150 to something like $2000.

Martineau continued, “You got the key wet, it’s the only reason it won’t start. And we have to send the car to the mainland and this is very expensive, we can’t rent it for a month. You agreed to pay $350 if you got it wet.”

“But we didn’t get it wet!”

“Fine take it up with your credit card company. We will send them the evidence.” The could send a picture of any wet key they wanted to send. I told Kevin that if Citibank didn’t side with us he should drop their card but I don’t think he wanted to hear that. Martineau slapped $550 – unauthorized – onto the card immediately, as Kevin was on the phone in the airport lobby frantically making his case to Citibank’s representative.

I do not know if I would call Martineau overtly fraudulent so much as opportunistic. To pass along hearsay, a man who worked for a tour company in Vieques told me that Martineau’s were the worst and often tried to charge people for “getting their keys wet.” Their car repair undoubtedly is expensive but it’s not our fault that the engine couldn’t cool.

We made it to the airport. We made it to Aspen even, only to find a place far more degenerate than I would have imagined.

Whitney late-night

This piece by Michael Asher for the Whitney Biennial absolutely rocked the Biennial itself, for me. We went last night, with our friend Jenn, after a long building meeting. The experience was magical.

Normally when you visit a musuem, you have to remember your dinner plans, your work commitments, pay attention to your phone's email, or at least feel conscious of the time that the museum closes. Although I did receive a text at 2am, that was more funny than distracting. I am not usually that cool.

I felt for the staff, but, wow. I could give the art real time and lose myself within it. Having the museum be almost entirely closed (especially with no sunlight streaming in) off to the outside world -- much like a casino, furthered the sensation of being lost.

The crowd that shows up at a museum at 1 am makes for good people watching too.

Now I always want to experience a museum in this way.

Vieques as Paradise

Malecón in Esperanza, Vieques
© 2010 bridget batch

Yes, isn't Vieques a little paradise? Could I sell these for the brochure?



he didn't make it onto the plane
© 2010 bridget batch

Vieques Misadventures

Beaches in Vieques feel like you purchased them in a backroom deal, definitely screwing someone over in the process.

In other words, they are so uncrowded, private even, clean, clear, pristine, you feel as if you own them. Such a feeling is marvelous and, depending on your beach experience, unprecedented. Thanks US Navy for keeping people away for so long! Who knows how much longer this will be, Vieques is no secret, nor a difficult trip (from the East Coast). The W just built a spa, the real estate is not cheap, and yet, it still feels renegade and unbesmirched.


Bahía de la Chiva
© 2010 bridget batch

We bounced over the barely functional 4 wheel drive tracks and landed at Punto Arenas beach on the north side, Atlantic Oceanfront property. We then parked the car in a little pullout facing the water, but surrounded by the forest. That's how they do beach in Vieques, you get a private driveway that fits one car. The next one is way down, invisible around some bend. Walk 2 feet and the beach is yours. The water was gentle, sheltered by the island of Culebra just a couple miles away. I spread out my towel and removed my bikini top enjoying the freedom involved in having no one to offend.

The last point along Bahía de la Chiva (Blue Beach) won whatever contest we were conducting to name our favorite beach. It's on the Caribbean coast, at the end of the one road into the eastern side of the island, a National Wildlife Refuge that used to be littered with bombs. The clean-up effort continues and civilians can't access maybe half of the island. Some bunkers covered in greenery rot over on the western end, but the jungle is working to claim them and their roads. One does not think of the Navy while sitting on the beach.

Just one little vestige of the Naval occupation remains, well, two if you're count the dramatically high cancer rate. Near those bunkers, a radar installation is marked as a no-go zone on the map. Our discounted jeep from Martineau Car Rental overheated next to a bunker covered in flowering vines. Just don't do it, do not rent from Martineau, don't drive around abandoned roads in one of their cars, and don't drive up to US military stations hidden in the jungle.

But, after the Jeep cooled, Kevin, completely unfazed by the stench and pouring smoke, pressed on. Wandering the roads over barely inhabited hills as the sun set, he, of course, found the radar station. Before we even parked, the radar station also found us. An overlit pick-up was speeding over to the chain-link gate on the road. I didn't see any radar facility, both of us just put our hands up and jumped back into the Jeep. It started and Kevin peeled out, up another hill.

The sun had set now, but the sky was still blue, a few fireflies dotted the dusk and the jungle was loud. Nothing was out here but a paranoid security guard to the left, trees, vines and a lot of razor wire-covered fencing. At the top of the hill the car started pouring out smoke again so we got out and started photographing. I changed into a little black outfit to try and make a "Spirit" picture from my new project. The mosquitoes launched a full-scale assault and I muttered my gratitude to American sanitation and its successful banishment of malaria.

Someone had made a large stencil of some words in the road.
AQUI
NOS DA
LOS QUE
-OS

The last bit looked like "MOS" but the first letter or letters were worn off. I walked around and tried to figure out what it said, and why. Nothing human-made resided near us, except the razorwire. Dios seemed the obvious candidate. Six years of studying it and yet my Spanish is feeble. Despite the heat and mosquito bites I felt chilled. Mental institution leapt to mind.

Kevin walked over, "What does that say?"

"I don't know, I am trying to figure it out. I think it says "Here, what God gives us."

"Let's get the hell out of here. That car had better start."

I looked at him, "I am not going to argue with you!" And I threw the tripod into the car. I never do that. The poor car actually started.

more misadventures to come

Vieques Pics

On the ferry to Vieques
© 2010 bridget batch


US Customs House in Fajardo, Puerto Rico
© 2010 bridget batch



On the pier in Fajardo, Puerto Rico
© 2010 bridget batch

Kevin and I are preparing to do a shoot in Vieques, Puerto Rico. He is at his friend Brian’s, testing out a lens with his video camera. I am working on another, unrelated project.

We are going to shoot at the “Bio Bay.” Bahia de Mosquito is the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world. w.golden-heron.com/biobay.html. Wait, what’s a bioluminescent bay?

In February, I was idling on the phone with the man. He was at the Caldera residency. I was stuck at home, missing him, missing wanderlust and trying to cram down as much “day job” work as I could before leaving for Arizona. I was also researching bioluminescence. I am working on a proposal (and missing many deadlines) for a grant to build a bioluminescent (or reminiscent thereof) installation in the city here. Besides being beautiful, I want to create, within an urban environment, the eerie and otherworldly I so often shoot in nature. Most humans live in cities, and yet so many of us seem to long for nature, to find the only refuge in this world that torments us. How many New Yorkers in their 30s decide that the only way to keep sane is to buy a house upstate?

How to create a sense of bioluminescence in non-natural materials is a problem I have no yet solved. The fascination, and conviction, that this phenomenon reaches to a place so strangely inside of us, yet so foreign as to remain frightening and transcendent, began during a trip to shelter island for the party of someone who had a house out there. Shelter Island has no streetlights and, on a moonless night, basks under the starriest skies in southern new york. In that blackness, at least ten of us held our breath and flung ourselves off of a dock and into the bay.

All around us, the water sparkled. Previously as tranquil, murky and foreboding as any leech-ridden lake, the water now shone as lovely and jewel-like as the sky. This was bioluminescence and I had never heard of it.

Back to this year, I followed every possible search for bioluminescence that google deigned to make available to me. I even went here and immediately sent a link to Jean-Luc Sinclair. Of all the strange ideas, yet one that somehow reaches deeply inside, to a place logic and mystery convene, music, logical music, made from notes matching DNA.

And, I found this: Meanwhile, Kevin was hitting on bioluminescence as a theme as well, as he kept lighting more flames and catching more trails while way out west. Now that we are back east, and also tripping on our FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, we have decided that Vieques is the place to go. So has the W, sigh.

But then...

But home is also a land of roots and community. Although, just why is it that we need roots and community? The longstanding view of a world in which one is loyal to some divided groups of humanity, variously called your tribes, your country or your trench coat mafia, has not proven to be peaceful or even really effective in terms of global management.

I think that those of us dwelling as artists, hipsters (yes, you know you are), world travelers, whatnot these days, like to think that we construct our own communities. Choose your own community, if you will. Your community status results from the intrinsic qualities of you and what you have thought about, created and contributed, not from your bloodline.

Although when on the road I can easily strike up a conversation with just about anyone, it’s at home in New York City where my community surrounds me. It is my friends who I miss while traveling. It is my friends who I like to help out. I filled in as assistant on Jen Campbell's shoot for Glass Magazine two days ago, for example.

And yesterday, sitting in McCarren Park, Kevin and I ran into his friend Ian. With Ian were two people, one who just moved back to New York from Portland. Later his friend from Portland joined us. Six people, loosely linked sat and talked for hours. The sun drifted behind lengthening shadows and we followed the last of its rays onto the softball field. The girls next to us, also progressively moving into right field, lost the chihuahua they were babysitting. But the softball team had adopted him, so they were saved from a roommate's wrath. They, and the chihuahua, joined our group. Later that night, we went to our friend Brian's apartment and ate too much cheese and drank too much wine with him and more friends. I can't relay to you that any of the conversations were deep and insightful. But besides pleasant, it was important. We were with family.

Coming Home

The problem with traveling is the coming home.

My fellow victims of wanderlust, we must return home sometime. It can't be a coincidence that some of the world's most inveterate travelers are based in New York, a wonderful city whose housing facilities are usually less than commendable. As one gets older and accumulates more stuff, one notices that other people getting older with them are schlepping that stuff out of the city. Is it that the crowds have worn upon them? Or that they are just sick of moving everything around merely to unpack their suitcases. Maybe Hong Kong is full of addicted frequent flyers as well.

Home is where the heart is, or the heartbreak. We've been afflicted by construction issues in a new apartment. That makes for some very concrete housing pain. Unfortunately, some people probably need to avoid their families for one reason or another. I find the realities of "home" to be infected with tensions explored in many a Feminist academic polemic. Housework now saddens me, rather than enraging me with righteous fury. One must cook and clean, does it really need to be a political, demographical, anthropological struggle (in my head, mostly)? God is it endless, the cleaning I mean. And I even own a dishwasher. It would be nice to somehow enjoy it more, but it sure as hell doesn't pay much.

Home is also the place of bills, endless credit card offers even when you're on "that" list, advertisements for burial plots for Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Cooley (not sure who the second person is and why their mail comes here), grocery store coupons and take-out menus jammed in the doorway, forgotten coffee grinds, cords that somehow escape their pens and get into death matches with dust bunnies, leaks and the same view every single morning. Like the Little Prince I love to watch the sunset. At home, the sunset stars the same exact vine-covered telephone pole every single day. It's almost as bad as eating in most of small town America.

Even an American landscape dotted by drearily endless franchise signs at least changes as you venture through it. But home does not. Some people find this comforting. Why do I find it frightening?

flying in february

travel secrets exposed

Why has the New York Times gone everywhere and how do I get that job?

Lessons From the Icelandic Volcano Eruption
By SUSAN STELLIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/travel/02prac.html?ref=travel

Makes one daydream... I think they have an article about every single place Kevin and I have talked about traveling to as of late. Save one, and I am not telling.

After writing such a paean to air travel, I was at the airport the next day, flying to Buffalo. The plane was a tiny one, and it was early on a Sunday morning, yet the flight was completely full.

The Delta line was terribly slow, blockaded by a woman who not only couldn't manage enough English to say "Hello" but also had apparently never seen a line before, and two "real American" firefighters who thought they shouldn't have to pay checked baggage fees. But even when those barriers were removed, the other customers took just as long to sort out the fact that their bags needed sticky tags to get to Omaha. I know, we are experienced travelers, but isn't everyone in a hurry at the airport?

Perhaps my anxiety comes from years of perilous near misses at the jetway. At age 19, I did actually miss a flight from London to Paris. Even though it was my final night of a semester spent studying in London, I was out too late the night before and had not finished packing my belongings. The next flight over the Channel did a fine job of delivering me and those belongings. Another time, I waltzed into JFK 15 minutes before my flight took off for Miami, where I was to meet my mother and sister. This was after 9-11. I have no idea why they let me on the plane. My mother would have been so angry at me.

Behavior like that now would probably lead to a divorce, an option unavailable to my mom. These days I pretend I am more responsible.

I often work as a photo assistant, for my husband. This is an interesting thing to do. When we first met, in a color darkroom, not on a job, I had freelanced as a photographer's assistant for a couple years. He begged me to work for him but I refused. I do not know how well most photo assistants get along with the photographers they slave for, but I do know that I resent authority and a photo shoot is a dictatorship.

But Kevin gets jobs in Miami, South Africa, Copenhagen... it's hard to say no to that. This job, in Niagara Falls, maybe wasn't quite so glamorous. But three days outside in the mist at the honeymoon capital of the world with my new husband couldn't be so bad. As it turns out, the working relationship is 60% brilliant, 20% quite good and 20% profoundly annoying. I keep taking the 4 out of 5. On the morning of our departure, our only skirmish involved bringing (or not bringing) a small trolley for the heavy equipment carry-ons. I wanted to save my back. He insisted it wouldn't work. Not such a bad skirmish. Oh well, lifting heavy things gave me a nice, muscular back for my wedding gown. And he's the boss. He's not always a dictator though. I get to play around a little on these jobs....


Niagara Falls, from our hotel room

Why travel?

Why this human need for travel? Does it relate to a need for novelty? Why the restless, haunting desire to be a vagabond, to wander? Is it hard-wired? A legacy from our hunter-gatherer days? Let's ask Jared Diamond.

Tourism is now one of the world's number one industries. It is yet another lopsided economic construct. Poor countries, rather than merely selling out their land, now mine their cultural heritages, or less-spoiled landscapes. Well, despite all that jet exhaust fueling climate change, I don't think we should all be staying home.

I love traveling. Even the concomitant hassles, fights err, relationship struggles, the lines, baggage dragging, relentless solicitations, and jet lag. I love jet lag. I love waking up too early, surreal, dreamy, potent and startling. I love airports. Being at an airport means I am going somewhere. I don't care about the pain of security, it's gone, forgotten within mere minutes. The adrenaline surge of worrying that I will miss my flight is addictive. I love take-off most of all. The moment the plane skips off of the ground, an overgrown child throwing itself into space, I feel freedom. I am afraid of heights, but not in airplanes.

And then you arrive. Even someplace I've been before will have changed since my last visit. If you are assiduous in your gaze, boredom will not plague you. I am many things, including overwhelmed, but I am not bored. Not allowing yourself to become overwhelmed is important. But why are we even here, or there, or en route to, in the first place?

photographs

Driving in the Sun

This is a new series of photographs by video and photo artist Naomi White. I think they are lush and beautiful, Driving in the Sun.


© Naomi White

Pretty Doll

I am very excited by this video:

Pretty Doll from Tchaiko Omawale on Vimeo.

It’s short and not so sweet, Lynchian-surreal, scary beautiful. Check out Tchaiko's website, she's so fabulous she gets to have a site with just a one-word name: www.tchaiko.com.

Snow Daze

More snow, i cannot resist. I am headed to the mountains next week, then the Grand Canyon for a residency at the South Rim. Although it can't possibly be true, I feel like I will be leaving winter behind and that makes me sad. I guess being included in an Artist Residency means I am getting some recognition too, so from my struggling artist blog standpoint, this is quite exciting. I am going with my husband, the fabulously talented photographer, check him out (if you haven't already), Kevin Cooley. We were jointly awarded the residency, which is pretty much an ideal way to live life.

As for nostalgia about snow, The WG News blog featured fellow Brooklyn artist, Elizabeth Smolarz's snow pictures. I think this one is my favorite.
© Elizabeth Smolarz
you cannot even tell you're in Brooklyn.

She's a conceptual artist with amazing range, traveling the world exploring completely contemporary concepts. Tomorrow she is presenting with this program, Economies in the Digital Age at Art in General.

life, continued...

Hooray for NYC winter wonderland yesterday. It's really too bad the snow is all smooshy and unbeautiful immediately. It was very difficult to shoot, I needed some sort of all-weather cover for my camera. But I enjoyed the creative energy of all these artists working on snow sculptures in McCarren Park. I peered through a plastic bag and lifted it in order to make the exposure. That did not stop the snow from getting all over the lens. Ahhh, who needs straight photography anyway?




I did not finish my story from now, gasp, TWO days ago. I know everyone's dying to hear it. At last week's X Initiative, BYOA, show (that's Bring Your Own Art), New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz flitted about, giving quickie critiques to anyone who would subject themself to it — as long as they were his friend on Facebook. I'd never heard about this, "Be Jerry Saltz's friend on Facebook" thing, although it is apparently a "thing." Before I even saw him giving the critique, a friend of a friend was gushing about it as we wandered the show. And then, we bumped into his group.

Personally, I am not too impressed by celebrity. When you examine my attitude, what I am is a recovering hater. But, as I watched the man give his critique, I was impressed. He had so much energy, and even though he was being rough on the guy, I felt like it was the kind of roughness I could maybe take. He was constructive, he was enthusiastic, even in his criticism he seemed supportive. He projected that he actually wanted the guy to make good work. Mr. Saltz did not emit the airs of a "too cool for school," pretentious New York art worlder. So, when he asked if someone had work nearby to look at, I raised my hand.

He asked if I were his Facebook friend, and I held out my iPhone and said that I was trying to become one, right at that moment. He grumbled but walked over to my photograph. And then he made my night. "Now, this is actually a very nice photograph. It's mysterious and working to present a timeless scene. And yet, the subject's costume is very much in the present, which makes the work feel modern." Or something like that.

I was so excited. Almost nothing lifts my heart more than a compliment on my work, work that it seems I have to fight to even find time to make. I watch people get compliments on their work every day, but I have not gotten my work out there enough to even know what the world would think of it. To have received validation from such an authority, I felt genuinely encouraged.

So, my night was made and I partied on with my friends, infused with my own private giddiness. The world is not necessarily so forbidding. The artist's life continues.

BYOA -- X -- Initiative

Hello! This is from the X Iniative's blowout, "BYOA: Bring Your Own Art Show" last week. I showed up and taped this lovely print to the wall, it's 20x24 inches. For such a huge, open show (and a great idea!), the event really was very well-behaved. I hope that's a good thing. Maybe it's better to have a world that celebrates gentleness over brashness, focusing on beauty and love rather than shocking the hell out of everyone. Besides, who's thought of something really shocking lately anyway? I think the right wing have a monopoly on that. Dealing with their outraged, without being outraged yourself, might be the basis for a good piece.
Here is what some others have to say about the show:
http://www.artfagcity.com/2010/02/05/blnk-byoa-at-the-x-initiative/
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/byoa/


I've been struggling to figure out what exactly I'd make this blog about. I have hardly mentioned its existence, although I can see that some dear people are actually taking some time to read it. Please feel free to weigh in on what YOU think I should write about. My unclear direction certainly contributes to my erratic maintenance.

I lead a varied, and maybe not strange, but certainly inconsistent, life. I am very focused on, but very, ahhh, dissatisfied with my work. I strive every day to become a better person and a better artist. I seek to contribute to the world.

And the world is a big, noisy place, filled with a lot of things. I do not seem to have evolved into the kind of person who can shout more loudly than everyone, a la some people. I have made it to "a certain age" and not gotten famous. So now what? Do I quit? Or do I listen to Jerry Saltz? That story tomorrow...

For now, listen to David Lynch on meditation! So cool!
http://forum-network.org/lecture/consciousness-creativity-and-brain

My roommate for the month (my kevin is away) and I are trying to be healthy, and frugal, by going to the grocery store and buying everything, all at once. We may have overdone it. Note the refrigerator temperature of 51. The film is not considered edible. There was twice as much a week ago.